18th Century Merchant Man Half Hull Planking Kit by Jim M - NRG - 1:48

Jim M · October 13

I am excited to start with my next project, the planking tutorial. Prior to receiving the kit, I had the manual printed.

I am impressed with the kit contents and how it was packaged.

Next I mounted the build sheet, on a piece of 1/2 foam I had as a build board using some spray adhesive.

I need to pick up some markers, and chart tape, but I am eager to get this project moving forward this week.

jim

Edited October 20 by Jim M

RossR · October 13

Looking forward to following along. Good luck.

Jim M · October 13

1 hour ago, RossR said:

Looking forward to following along. Good luck.

thank you

damaartenman · October 14

Following on this one 🙂 Hope you will enjoy it.

Gregory · October 14

Looking forward to seeing your work on this.. I know you are looking to get the planking thing down..

Desertanimal · October 14

I’ll be watching! Enjoy!

kurtvd19 · October 14

I think you are going to enjoy this build.

Kurt

Jim M · October 19

Good evening,

After a challenging week, I was able to get some modeling done tonight.

First I labeled the parts so that I could remember what is what

Next I then cut out the keel, keelsom, stern post, fore keelsom, stem, stemson, deadwood and the l-piece from the kit.

I then used some double sided tape to help dry fit the pieces

Next I focused on getting the stemson and stem lined up correctly with a nice joint.

I then removed the char from the pieces, to work on the fit. I ended up making a couple sanding sticks after trying to use an old blade to scrap off the char. The results are as follows:

Finally the fit for the stemson to the stem now looks like:

I continued per the manual with the following items to get a nice fit. I realigned my keelsom to the its matching bulkhead location, and then worked on the fore keelsom to get it to fit. and match its bulkheads.

The final result is

Finally today, I marked out the rabbets. I will let it sit overnight before I make some sawdust and cut them out.

jim

Jim M · October 23

Good afternoon,

I made some progress on my kit today,

First I added the rabbet

Next, i cut out the 4th and 5th bulkhead so I can get a better visualization of the the rabbet on the stem, and stemsom.

I was able to get some good contract with a sample 1/32 piece from my last project.

Next I spent some more time deepening the rabbet, and getting the angle right. I also use an eraser to remove some of the pencil marks

Hopefully you can see the transition to 90 here in the stem

Finally I started the gluing process

I did break the stem post as I had to move it and it was setting up faster than expected. I noticed my crafting room was 78

I also found that the stem was lifting, so I used a couple or 3x2x1 blocks to hold it down.

Cheers

jim

Edited October 23 by Jim M

Jim M · October 23

Update here is the better picture of the glued keel. you can see where the keelsom broke.

Jim M · October 26

Good evening. Here is my next update.

Today, I extended the slots on the keelson.

Next I glued in the frames in two batches.

Batch 1 -> Frames E, C A, 1, 3

Batch 2 -> Frames -> D, B, DF (O), 2, 4

Next I added the fillers, and knocked off some of the char on the bulkheads.

I then marked out the bearding line use frames G and H as guides. I then took a french curve to make the curve.

Next, I shaped the bearding line by marking 1/32 and then blending in the curve.

Next i extended the rabbet along the keel until the the stern post. This rabbet is 90 degrees.

I then glued in the deadwood, sternpost and L-shaped pieces

Finally I glued in F and G frames. I initially had H glued in but I was a little hasty and removed it before it set.

I will let this firm up over night and continue on the next step tomorrow.

Cheers

Jim M · November 12

Good morning,

I know it has been a while since I last posted. Real life has gotten in the way.

By November 1, I had completed the following:

I started with finishing adding the supports and the transom. Before adding it, I realized I glued the L-Piece onto the board incorrectly, so I had to pull out the isopropyl out and fix its positioning. I did use a square to line up the transom.

For the next few days, I spent some time getting the top line correct. I used chart tape to help visualize the curve. From there I use a square to transfer the line to the bulwarks.

If you notice, I had to add a shim on 5a and AF. This is because I deepened those connections.

Overall I am happy with the line.

Last week I broke down and purchased a Dremel. Thus last night, I finally got back to the project, and I started with shaping the top line. I purposely did not go all the way to my marks, so that I would have some room if necessary after planking to get the curves correct.

Here is the stern section. It will require some more sanding, as there is still a high spot.

The bow also is looking not bad.

Here is a view of the sanded top line.

Finally I started to fair the bulwarks from DF -> AF.

The curve is starting to take shape and I am getting some good contact with the plank.

Frame 4A is still not correct. I may need to add a filler to fix the line a bit.

Also when I tested the fit along the top line i noticed I had a gap as frame 4 is causing a high spot.

Overall the fairing is going well. I still need some more work on the bow half of the hull, but I decided to walk away last night as I do not want to rush things.

Though I did notice that my bow rabbet is a little shallow so I will deepen it too.

Cheers

palmerit · November 12

Definitely take time fairing the stern end. Take a look at some of the nice examples to see what it should/could look like and really make sure you can lay planks smoothly. I probably spent 10-20x longer fairing the last inch of the hull than I did the rest of the hull (didn't help that I first did it without the transom and then realized I took too much off some of the frames and had to add wood back). In retrospect, I also had a bit of a discontinuity (elbow) in the bow end that I probably could have seen if I had more patiently dry tested some planks. After now 2 1/2 plankings (well, maybe the Dory only counts 1/4) I'm getting a better sense of what plankings should look like.

Edited November 12 by palmerit

Jim M · November 14

On 11/12/2024 at 2:29 PM, palmerit said:

Definitely take time fairing the stern end. Take a look at some of the nice examples to see what it should/could look like and really make sure you can lay planks smoothly. I probably spent 10-20x longer fairing the last inch of the hull than I did the rest of the hull (didn't help that I first did it without the transom and then realized I took too much off some of the frames and had to add wood back). In retrospect, I also had a bit of a discontinuity (elbow) in the bow end that I probably could have seen if I had more patiently dry tested some planks. After now 2 1/2 plankings (well, maybe the Dory only counts 1/4) I'm getting a better sense of what plankings should look like.

@palmerit

I am starting to understand how planking and fairing should be done now. I am really loving my dremel with the wand attachment. I keep it at under 10k in speed and go slow. I am also using a 120 grit sandpaper so that is not that aggressive.

Jim M · November 14

Good evening. A minor update on the planking tutorial.

Today finished fairing the bow portion of the hull. I was able to get a nice curve on the hull.

Here is a photo just about the second strake.

This is approximately the second strake.

The garboard

Next, I started to tackle the top line in the stern.

You can see I have a low spot on frames E and D.

I used thread to give me a nice line along the bulwarks.

More sanding, and I am getting a little closer.

The lower top line is starting to curve nicely a little high spot on A.

After some sanding with a long sanding block I was able smooth out that high spot

Here you can still see the low spots on E and D.

I am pretty close here, I need to thin out G a bit more, and get a nice line. I started to address the the upper part of the top line to blend nicely into the transom.

Have a good night.

Cheers

Jim M · November 17

Good evening a minor update for today.

I did some more fairing of the hull and i focused on the stern. The sample board is fitting nicely.

Tomorrow plan is to get the counter in and finish the fairing. Hopefully I can get the planking bands identified

jim

Jim M · November 17

On 10/14/2024 at 12:29 PM, kurtvd19 said:

I think you are going to enjoy this build.

Kurt

I am @kurtvd19. This build is adding some clarity to how ships should be planked.

Jim M · November 19

Good evening.

Tonight I added the counter. I was a little aggressive with the sanding and I added a shim to get a solid connection. Secondly i mapped out the wale and added a string line to get the bottom into a nice curve.

Have a good night.

Edited November 19 by Jim M

Jim M · November 22

Good evening, I spent some time relining my wale line this afternoon.

I received some better chart tape yesterday, so I was able to map out the full wale, get the lines correct.

The calapiers helped in visualizing the wale, and where it needs to be. I ended up using some green marker to mark the final positions.

I also did some more fairing on the stern to make it a little more smoother. I suspect I may need some more when I get closer to the deck.

I then marked out the 14 inches at the stern for the garboard, and the 12 inches for frames D - 3. I also spent some time making tick sheets.

Here is the stern

And here is frame B

After I was happy I took a break to look at the garboard how it is going to lay down.

I then marked out and cut out the first half of the garboard on a piece of scrap planking material. I definitely did not like this result.

I repeated the process and you can see that the scribing is larger than my fist attempt.

I also cut the plank outside of the lines this time so that I can shape it a little better.

After cutting it out, I it definitely was a little better in the fit category. I had to do some sanding.

However, I am not fully satisfied with this plank; I did not cut the notch correctly, and the plank does not sit in the rabbit correctly.

I decided to take a break tonight. However, I think I am going to redo this plank again.

Cheers

Jim

palmerit · November 22

2 hours ago, Jim M said:

However, I am not fully satisfied with this plank; I did not cut the notch correctly, and the plank does not sit in the rabbit correctly.

I ended up redoing that first plank too - for the same reason. I ended up buying some more basswood sheets so that I could redo planks as often as I needed. I found that after redoing a few, I would have used all the basswood that came with the kit.

I always made by planks too large and then just sanded them down to shape them. Probably a hack. But when I tried to precisely mark out the shape and cut them they were always off, and if they're too small or there's a gap you need to start over. Making them wider and longer made it easier to iterate. I definitely used the ultimation slicer a lot.

One challenge I found is that you need to wet down to shape. But when wet, you can't sand or cut.

Edited November 22 by palmerit

Jim M · November 22

10 hours ago, palmerit said:

I ended up redoing that first plank too - for the same reason. I ended up buying some more basswood sheets so that I could redo planks as often as I needed. I found that after redoing a few, I would have used all the basswood that came with the kit.

I always made by planks too large and then just sanded them down to shape them. Probably a hack. But when I tried to precisely mark out the shape and cut them they were always off, and if they're too small or there's a gap you need to start over. Making them wider and longer made it easier to iterate. I definitely used the ultimation slicer a lot.

One challenge I found is that you need to wet down to shape. But when wet, you can't sand or cut.

I found on the second plank having the ability to iterate over it was better. When I worked on the transition, I placed my scalpel in the wrong spot and it slipped.

How did you integrate the slicer on these custom planks? Just for the length?

palmerit · November 22

Just for length. Better than a scalpel.

Jim M · November 25

Good evening,

The countdown has begun for dead turkey day; I have a lot to due this week, with brining the turkey, making apple and pecan pies, along with my cranberries, and stuffing. However I was able to get some work done on my planking project.

As a recap, I was not happy with the garboard last time. I had already cut two planks, and they just where not working. After taking a couple days from the project I was able to get the offending plank done.

I first re-scribed the plank. I found that using a small piece of wood I was able to properly burnish the rabbet a lot better, and the length in the template was much more accurate.

I then cut the plank a little oversized and used my planner and sanding sticks to bring it the right size. I would check against the marks I made at each the bulkhead.

As you can see below, I was able to get the full garboard mocked up nicely using this technique.

A close up of the stern

A close up of the bow.

Next I then glued the planks to the model.

I then proceed with the bow for the first strake.

However, after I pulled the clamps I noticed that the there was a gaping whole between the planks.

It took me three tries to get this plank correct but I was able to finally obtain the results I was looking for. With this plank I decided to wet the plank as I was putting the clamps on for a dry fit so that it would bend a little better.

After waiting for the plank to dry, I then glued it on. I did forget to add the pencil to simulate the caulk but I will go back and do it in the morning.

Cheers

Jim

Jim M · December 8

Good afternoon,

Sorry for the lack of progress the last week, I was in Vegas for a week long conference for work. I was able to get the other two planks in for the first strake yesterday.

My next step is to start to determine the planking bands.

Jim M · December 10

Good evening, I spent some time today determining the planking bands.

I was a little confused on the the counter, but after re-reading the instructions a few times, I noticed that I should keep 4 planks at 9" for the upper band, so I added a mark there.

For the bow, again it was a little confusing, but I ended up using the distance from the first broad strake, to the whale using bulkhead 5a, and there i created the marks for the bands there.

On the stern, I did not calculate the split, but after rethinking it, I decided the stern plank should be 11", and I set the second band 1/2 way between the first strake, and the third belt. The plank count turns out to be 4.5 per band, so I will create a steeler between first and second bands.